Long COVID is sidelining millions of workers from their jobs : NPR
Anyone want an invite to the Arc Browser beta? I have at least one invitation available.
The Browser Company | Building Arc
send your email address to lsievert@gmail.com
Currently reading: A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine 📚
Currently reading: Bonita Avenue by Peter Buwalda 📚thanks to @ton for the recommendation at a Reader’s Republic meetup.
Finished reading: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki 📚I loved this novel. Sorta SciFi, sorta Fantasy, but all great. A fun summer read with plenty of characters who are uncommon stars.
In August, I’m going to do a NaNoWriMo prep suggested by Stefon Mears. He says
“Write 250 words of new, unrelated fiction. Every day.”
Excerpt From The 30-Day Novel and Beyond!: A training program for aspiring novelists Stefon Mears This material may be protected by copyright.
Finished reading: A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan Book 2) by Arkady Martine 📚Fantastic world building but somehow it just doesn’t all hang together with a bit too much Deus ex Machina. However, it’s good enough that I want to read the first in the series, A Memory Called Empire, which garnered so much praise.
Currently reading: Light From Uncommon Stars by Ryka Aoki 📚
In other news, the local peaches I purchased last Wednesday are telling me “we’ll be ripe tomorrow!” I am very into peach management in the summer. If all goes well, we will have ripe peaches to eat every day from now until September.
Finished reading: Whirlybird Island by Ernest Hebert 📚Worth reading for Hebert fans, which I am.
Finished reading: Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World: Essays by Barry Lopez 📚A beautiful book with a useful perspective on nature and living a good life. It saddens me to know that his home burned in a wildfire. Remembering Barry Lopez, McKenzie River and Finn Rock resident
Currently reading: A Desolation Called Peace (Teixcalaan Book 2) by Arkady Martine 📚I haven’t read the first one A Memory Called Empire but so far it seems fine to begin with Book 2. Book 1 has been hard to get from my Library.
Watched Episode 1 of Obi-wan Kenobi and quite enjoyed it. Partly because I did have questions about this period of time in the Star Wars chronology, when Luke and Leia were children.📺
Finished reading: The Story of a New Name (Neapolitan Novels Book 2) by Elena Ferrante 📚oh my, these novels are SO GOOD. They are searing and painful and contain topics I hate (abuse, misogyny) but the world is so real and the characters so well drawn. I am in awe of the writing.
Currently reading: Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante 📚
Currently reading: Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World: Essays by Barry Lopez 📚
Currently reading: Whirlybird Island by Ernest Hebert 📚
I have been using DevonThink as my RSS feed manager and reader for over a year and am very happy with this solution. I have one database in DT dedicated to RSS feeds. DT has built-in support for adding a feed by URL. An unexpected benefit is posts showing up in my DT searches.
Finished reading: Himalayan Dhaba by Craig Joseph Danner 📚Not recommended unless you’re one of those people who love it when emergency room doctors start telling graphic stories.
Finished reading: Learning from the Germans by Susan Neiman 📚Quite a good book about what Germany has done to “work off” its Nazi crimes, and what the US could do to work off its slavery crimes.
Finished reading: Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller 📚a useful marketing book. So many in this genre are useless.
Finished reading: Frankie’s Place by Jim Sterba 📚I liked this more than I expected. Well-off white people enjoying their boring summers in Maine in the 1990s. With recipes.
Congress enacted Title IX on June 23, 1972, and what it meant to me
Congress enacted Title IX on June 23, 1972
“Title IX laid waste to everything. It laid waste to ideas — men’s ideas of what women were capable of, but most importantly, women’s ideas about themselves.”
I was twelve years old when Title IX was enacted. I knew it had happened – I grew up in Washington, DC in a political household, so we knew and talked about legislation – but I don’t think it was personal for me at first.
Five years later, I was in high school. My best friend said, “I’m starting a girl’s cross-country track team and I want you to join me.” I’d never run anywhere at that point. Nor did I come from an athletic family. But I joined on principle: our high school had a boy’s cross-country team so it should have a girl’s team, too.
I ran cross-country during my last two years there. The joy I felt at developing strength and stamina in the company of friends was unexpected.
We just passed the 50th anniversary of Title IX. Looking back, I realize that Title IX changed my life. That high school experience running track has led to a lifetime of athleticism. I am, knock on wood, an exceptionally healthy 62-year-old. I lift weights, swim solo in large NH lakes, ride bicycles and ski.
But without Title IX to open my eyes to possibility, I never would have embarked on this active life. Thus, I am exceptionally grateful today to the people who worked to pass Title IX legislation in the United States in 1972.